Dativo no falado: pra ele, não lhe
Dativo no falado: pra ele, não lhe means “Brazilians say "dei pra ele", not "dei-lhe" — lhe is bookish”. Textbooks teach the dative clitic lhe, but in Brazilian speech it has all but disappeared for third persons. Formation: verbo + para/pra + ele/ela/você — em vez do clítico lhe
Brazilians say "dei pra ele", not "dei-lhe" — lhe is bookish
A2Formation
verbo + para/pra + ele/ela/você — em vez do clítico lhe
Explanation
Textbooks teach the dative clitic lhe, but in Brazilian speech it has all but disappeared for third persons. Corpus work on Brazilian theatre dialogue across the 19th and 20th centuries tracked the shift: the dative clitic fell from about sixty per cent in the 1840s to roughly three per cent by the 1990s, while prepositional phrases rose to about half and null datives to nearly as much. European Portuguese over the same period kept the clitic dominant, so this is a clean Brazilian development, not a general drift. Two consequences for you. Say dei o livro pra ele rather than dei-lhe o livro. And note that within the prepositional phrase, para overtook a: teach pra ele, not a ele. Also very common is simply dropping the dative altogether: Ele perguntou se eu ia.
Examples
Note
⚠ pra mim, never "pra eu" — after a preposition Portuguese uses mim, ti, ele. But "para eu fazer" is correct, because there eu is the subject of an infinitive.
FAQ
Dativo no falado: pra ele, não lhe — what does it mean and how is it used?
Brazilians say "dei pra ele", not "dei-lhe" — lhe is bookish. Textbooks teach the dative clitic lhe, but in Brazilian speech it has all but disappeared for third persons. Corpus work on Brazilian theatre dialogue across the 19th and 20th centuries tracked the shift: the dative clitic fell from about sixty per cent in the 1840s to roughly three per cent by the 1990s, while prepositional phrases rose to about half and null datives to nearly as much. European Portuguese over the same period kept the clitic dominant, so this is a clean Brazilian development, not a general drift. Two consequences for you. Say dei o livro pra ele rather than dei-lhe o livro. And note that within the prepositional phrase, para overtook a: teach pra ele, not a ele. Also very common is simply dropping the dative altogether: Ele perguntou se eu ia.
Dativo no falado: pra ele, não lhe — how do you form it?
verbo + para/pra + ele/ela/você — em vez do clítico lhe
Dativo no falado: pra ele, não lhe — any usage notes?
⚠ pra mim, never "pra eu" — after a preposition Portuguese uses mim, ti, ele. But "para eu fazer" is correct, because there eu is the subject of an infinitive.